COLUMN: Once again it’s us vs. them
Well it didn’t take long for the unified stance of “United We Stand” to come to a screeching halt. Yes, that was a little redundant, but I feel it was necessary to get my point across. We were filled with the passionate fervor of being one country united as a people, but apparently all it took was national “Coming Out Day” to cause some people to digress back into their “us verses them” mindset.
In the past, I’ve discussed that homosexuals deserve the right to get married if they so choose. But I think I might have started a few steps ahead of the key issue. The first thing we need to establish and realize is we are all human beings. In the Constitution it’s not “We the heterosexuals,” no it’s “We the people.” That means everyone.
I don’t understand this basic impulse people suffer from which causes them to demand people should only be allowed to be romantically interested in the opposite sex. Why? It seems very limiting and oppressive if you ask me.
I’m not after a religious discussion; I want this to be an individually-based view people look at. Hating and persecuting something you know nothing about or something you think is wrong because someone else told you it was wrong is a lot like the hate and fear caused by the Cold War. We hated a nation of strangers because someone else told us they were evil. But once we got to know them, we actually became friends.
Let’s look at the most basic components of homosexual relationships: Interest, caring, love and commitment. What makes two people loving each other, or simply dating each other to see if love is a possibility, a hate inducing crime? For some reason this is only OK if this occurs between a man and a woman, but I find that ludicrous. We are dealing with people and not an individual sex. The topic we should really be looking at is about people’s right to care about others, to love others and find happiness in life by sharing their life with someone else (if you feel it is necessary).
Believing one’s sexual preference is wrong, evil or wicked, whether you realize it or not, is saying that love, happiness and commitment are only capable and allowed to heterosexuals. If you look at yourself as a human and not male or female, you begin to understand the importance of these emotions in your life and not solely your life but everyone else’s as well.
All you men out there, do you care about your male friends? Do you love some of them? Women, ask yourself the same question about your female friends. What makes you so different from these people you term as “wrong?” The emotions are the same. It doesn’t matter the sexual orientation, what matters is that people care about each other.
When people rail about how wrong homosexuality is – if you break down what they are saying to its simplest form – what they are really saying is they are against having people care about other people.
If you have a problem with people of the same sex holding hands in public, then you should be just as against people of the opposite sex doing the same thing. It’s either cute if all people do it or it’s disgusting if all people do it. It should have nothing to do with sexual preference.
So why is this normal human interaction wrong? I’d honestly like to know? It’s something I don’t understand. And I’d like any viewpoint to be devoid of any higher power reference. Hating something should never be based on the viewpoint, “Someone told me it was wrong, so it is.” That is not a real answer or explanation. And if homosexuality is unnatural then why is it found throughout nature and not just a specific action of the human race?